The Definition of Insanity
by Mousme
Summary: Dean keeps making the same choices, over and over and over. I guess this is a Season 4-5 character study? Sort of?


_Title: _**The Definition of Insanity**

Prompt/Summary: Written for the **spn_las** prompt "Never Ending." Dean makes the same choices, over and over and over again.

Characters: Dean, Sam, Alastair

Rating: R

Wordcount: 935

Disclaimer: Fiction based on other fiction, none of it mine.

Warnings: Vague spoilers through Season 5. Fairly graphic descriptions of torture. Fugue-state. Mentions of canon character death.

Neurotic Author's Note #1: Welp, it's the second-to-last round of LAS, and I'm still here. Not quite sure how that happened, but I'm not complaining!

Neurotic Author's Note #2: Unbeta'd, as per the requirements of the challenge.

* * *

_On the first day, Hell is nothing but the sounds of screaming and the stench of decay and despair. There is no smell of sulphur, which surprises Dean. Then hooks dig into his shoulders and the pain drives him to his knees, until the chains drag him back and up onto the platform, and he screams and screams and screams. Sam has always come for him before, and so he screams for Sam, and then he screams for his father, and then he screams for anyone, anyone at all who might hear him._

"Hey, you coming?" Sam asks, and Dean blinks.

"Yeah, sure."

_On the seventh day, Alastair steps up to the platform, and sulphur rolls off him in waves just as his razor blade winks and twinkles in the reddish glow of hellfire. He smiles at Dean, revealing all seventeen rows of teeth, each more awful than the last, and he reaches out with arms that have too many articulations and watches Dean from five different angles at once. He flays him alive, pulls him apart with ruthless precision. When he asks for Dean's allegiance, Dean spits blood in his face._

"I don't know how you have the patience for that," Sam comments, watching him work on the Impala.

Dean shrugs. "Sometimes it's good to just build something."

_On the thirtieth day, Dean writhes and screams and begs, and Alastair laughs, and offers him exactly the same deal as before._

"You know what the definition of crazy is?" Sam asks, dabbing at the laceration on Dean's arm with an antiseptic swab. "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

_Dean is on his knees, which has long since become Alastair's favourite position for him._

"_It's a pose of supplication," Alastair reminds him, as though he hasn't said the same thing every day for ten years, trailing the tip of his razor along the line of Dean's jaw, just hard enough that Dean can feel it scraping against his skin, not nearly hard enough to draw blood or even break the skin. "You can appreciate that, I think. The irony of turning the tables on all these church-goers who end up here anyway, because God cannot abide hypocrites. But then, you've never put much faith in God, have you, Dean?" The blade moves over his Adam's apple, pricking a little. "So convinced you could save everybody, but you couldn't even save yourself. It's ironic, and just a little sad."_

_When he makes the offer, Dean almost forgets why he's supposed to refuse._

"The angels chose me, Sam! This on me, not you!"

_Dean shudders, and the movement sends fire through his arms. The spikes driven through his wrists slide and scrape against bone and tendon, and Alastair reaches out and yanks hard on one of the chains, dragging him closer, until his face is level with the demon's crotch. He chokes, and blood wells up in his mouth and bubbles over his lip. He ducks his head, because it's when his mouth and throat are filled with blood that Alastair loves it most. If he doesn't look up, sometimes Alastair gets different ideas, and flays the skin from his body instead, and he doesn't know anymore if it's a relief or a disappointment._

"Come on, Dean. You don't have to carry this alone."

"Shut up, Sam."

"_Perhaps you'd prefer if I maintained my true form?" Alastair circles the platform, and Dean lets out a sigh, sagging against his restraints. "But I do like this one," he runs a well-manicured hand over his newly-constructed torso. "You have such a thing for human authority figures, Dean. It's almost too easy. I take on the appearance of a middle-aged white man, and you spread your legs like a whore. You'll do anything for me. Anything at all."_

"We're each other's weakness, always have been."

"That isn't fair," Sam glares at him. They've been having the same argument for what feels like a thousand years, and he's just tired of it all.

_Dean shakes his head mutely, a plea rather than a denial, and the demon moves up behind him, pressing against his flayed back and eliciting a moan. Alastair snaps Dean's head forward, fingers twisting in his hair, and there's a sharp pain as the razor digs in just behind his ear, in the soft flesh under the lobe and above the jaw. In a moment, he knows, the razor will drag and pull over his neck and down along his spine, opening him up for all the world to see. Dean bites down on his tongue, and blood bubbles up into his nose._

_For the first time in twenty-five years, he lets himself think of Sam, and it's his undoing. _

"_Oh, you think you've saved him?" Alastair purrs. "That's charming. You've damned him, along with yourself, you know. If you accept, I will make sure you never have to think about what you've done to your baby brother ever again."_

"You have to promise not to bring me back."

"_Yes. Yes, I accept."_

"It's okay, Dean. It's gonna be okay. I've got him!"

That one is all Sam, not a single trace of the Devil inside him, and Dean is pinned where he is, can't so much as stretch out a hand to keep him from letting go, from falling backward into eternity.

_There's blood on the ground where Sam died, and it feels as though nothing at all has changed._


End file.
